Phone still not on.

I'm struggling. I know this is a DJ, but I think the man is about the dumbest box of rocks I've ever had the misfortune of picking up. I don't know if it's just all trickling off of the phone issue; probably so, but some of this stuff goes way back to last year. We got a letter from the cable company last October that we needed to get free converters for all our televisions that were not hooked up to a digital box. I ordered them, they came in, H installed them and announced that they didn't work. I said I would return them, he said don't bother, they were for analog televisions and would not affect ours at all. I believed him. FF to the other day, I found a great deal on a treadmill I knew he would like, he said buy it, so when we were selecting a place for it I suggested in front of the television downstairs. He said it didn't get any channels. I suggested that we try that converter we'd gotten, maybe he'd tried to hook it up before it was truly needed and that's why it didn't work. So he hooked it up again and said, "See??? The dam thing doesn't work!" I had the instructions that came with it and asked him if he'd read them. "Of course!" So I asked him if he read step 5. He said he read the whole thing. I read step 5 aloud: "Call [cable company] to activate device."

*crickets*

I did get an apology, and the televisions are working now, but I got a bunch of know-it-all BS and my kids missed out on having their own televisions for ten months because I believed what he told me and assumed he was bright enough to read directions, if not at first, at least when something doesn't work.

And this weekend he hollared at me about not bringing trash bags on the boat, when they were in the exact place I told him they were...again, I didn't check behind him because I assumed he was smart and thorough enough to check the place I'd said they were, and I could have been mistaken. When we got home, I unpacked the bag, and there they were.

I don't know how to walk this fine line. He wanted me to stop second-guessing him and stop following up on him, but he screws up and then blames me, and it seems so much easier, at least on my family and the aggravation toward me, for me to do just that, assume he doesn't know what he's talking about. He wanted a breakdown of an account (in his name), I told him I didn't know, he could just look it up while he was online. He was annoyed by that. I asked him if he would go look up random stuff for me that I didn't feel like looking up. He said I would never ask him to do that because I'm too controlling. I said I was competent, NOT controlling.

Not good times.